5:25 Express, new owner and a question

First of all hello to everyone here on the Board. I've purchased the Mesa Express 5:25 two days ago (first tube amp), still waiting for a cab to arrive however impatient as I am I plugged it into a small combo speaker (3.2Ohm 15W Peavey) just to hear it for a bit I'm the kind of guy that always thinks there might be something wrong with used gear, and with tube amps I really don't have experiance. First and so far only worry was how are the tubes, the owner replaced the power tubes not that long ago (a year, but the amp was played rarely as one of quite a few). On the BURN setting, with the gain cranked but master low (bedroom levels - can't test it harder till I get the cab) the gain is a round with a bit weak attack for my taste (round'ish is the only way I can describe it). I know this is no Recto and I'm not looking for it's ultra high gain in this amp, but the bite isn't quite there. Granted when I played with the contour knob it helped a bit (so did lowering the BASS below 12 o clock). There is no hiss or weird noises, amp seems to work beautifully in both channels (so does the reverb), but could this be the fault of preamp tubes (they are 4years old from what I was told - since the amp was new, owner told me he never had issues with them). Or is this a standard characteristic for this amp and I shouldn't be worried? I know I probably should've tested the amp with a proper cab at some proper levels but I just wanted to hear from the owners maybe, since there is no good higher gain demos of this amp out there to be honest. Ideal solution would be to change all the tubes on a used amp like this, especially since I haven't heard it new and don't have the comparison.. am I overreacting ? Thank You for any input. Oh and the amp has all MESA tubes in it and I plan to stick with MESA for now as I'm only starting the tube journey

Welcome to the world of Boogie!!

First - speaker will make a HUGE difference. You need to start with an MC90 or Mesa V-30 and you will probably get the "bite" you are missing. The Peavey is way wrong for this amp. (IMO)

Tubes - A new set of preamp tube can never hurt. I am using NOS tubes in V1 and V2, which fattened my Express 5:25 up.

Hope this helps!

Thank You very much for the feeback ! I do have a set of Mesa power EL84s heading my way just in case (a matched pair) and I thought of buying some Electro Harmonix 12ax7's for the preamp since from what I've read preamp tubes should be "plug and play" and don't need to be biased, correct? And the EH got gain with little fizz (so they say). I'm going to wait for the cabinet to arrive and order the tubes after x-mas then. I did try some V30s but I found them really harsh on the ears for my taste, but they might've not been broken in yet. I liked a Greenback cabinet very much and that's what I've got heading my way as I found a smokin deal on it I couldn't pass.

One more thing - it might be my ears fooling me, but is it possible that the channel 1 setting is affecting the gain on channel 2 ? For a moment I thought I heard a difference in gain while being on CH2 Burn and changing CH1 from Clean to Crunch lol...

Exacto said:

Thank You very much for the feeback ! I do have a set of Mesa power EL84s heading my way just in case (a matched pair) and I thought of buying some Electro Harmonix 12ax7's for the preamp since from what I've read preamp tubes should be "plug and play" and don't need to be biased, correct? And the EH got gain with little fizz (so they say). I'm going to wait for the cabinet to arrive and order the tubes after x-mas then. I did try some V30s but I found them really harsh on the ears for my taste, but they might've not been broken in yet. I liked a Greenback cabinet very much and that's what I've got heading my way as I found a smokin deal on it I couldn't pass.

One more thing - it might be my ears fooling me, but is it possible that the channel 1 setting is affecting the gain on channel 2 ? For a moment I thought I heard a difference in gain while being on CH2 Burn and changing CH1 from Clean to Crunch lol...

Click to expand...

Express does have the biting sound to it. I have the 5:50 plus version and for me to tame it down is by replacing the v1 and v2 preamp tubes. I used EH on both. Also, the amp is self biasing make sure to use a matching power tubes to avoid problems. Call Tubedepot. Good luck!

gonzald1 said:

Exacto said:

Thank You very much for the feeback ! I do have a set of Mesa power EL84s heading my way just in case (a matched pair) and I thought of buying some Electro Harmonix 12ax7's for the preamp since from what I've read preamp tubes should be "plug and play" and don't need to be biased, correct? And the EH got gain with little fizz (so they say). I'm going to wait for the cabinet to arrive and order the tubes after x-mas then. I did try some V30s but I found them really harsh on the ears for my taste, but they might've not been broken in yet. I liked a Greenback cabinet very much and that's what I've got heading my way as I found a smokin deal on it I couldn't pass.

One more thing - it might be my ears fooling me, but is it possible that the channel 1 setting is affecting the gain on channel 2 ? For a moment I thought I heard a difference in gain while being on CH2 Burn and changing CH1 from Clean to Crunch lol...

Click to expand...

Express does have the biting sound to it. I have the 5:50 plus version and for me to tame it down is by replacing the v1 and v2 preamp tubes. I used EH on both. Also, the amp is self biasing make sure to use a matching power tubes to avoid problems. Call Tubedepot. Good luck!

Click to expand...

MESA amps are fixed-bias, not self-biasing. You need to use a matched set of power tubes that have a mid-rating for current draw. If you use MESA tubes they are guaranteed to be in the correct operating range. Thanks!

Thank You ! I've ordered paired MESA EL84 set , from what I understand there are no different kinds of MESA EL84s ? As no other parameter was specified on our local distributors website.

Um, maybe I'm missing something, but didn't the OP state he was running a 3.2 ohm speaker? That'll change the sound for sure.

Hey Guys! The cab with the GreenBack made a big difference as expected. There is way more bite. However I'm still trying to figure out if this is the right amount of gain I'm getting from the BURN channel, as I mentioned before I've never heard this amp with new tubes. I've found a video of the 5:50 plus and I do know this is a newer version of the amps but should my 5:25 reach the levels of gain as those in the video? Because my Burn channel maxed out sounds like this one with the gain on about half. If anyone with more experience could let me know it would be great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TzgeJlMXTE

It sounds like active pups into the amp in vid. May be a boost as well.

It does not sound like normal passive pick ups into a stock amp to me.

Well I do have EMG's in my Gibson aswell. I've got the new Mesa EL84's a few days ago and I've installed them a while ago. Don't know if it's my ears again but I swear there is more bite and gain to the Burn channel. I've noticed one of the old EL84s was glowing bright blue, I know blue is not a bad thing, but could it be just the tubes being old? (changed 1 year ago, said to be played very little but who really knows..).